


The Elaines

by mattador



Series: The Knight of the Star [4]
Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 12:31:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2812073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mattador/pseuds/mattador
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a reason so many women named Elaine are tangled up in the stories of Arthur and Lancelot.  And it has nothing to do with Arthur and Lancelot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Elaines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/gifts).



The story falls to the survivor to tell.  Sometimes, as now, that means the youngest; and sometimes, as now, it means the one who escaped tragedy closer to unscathed than the rest.  So I, Elaine of Carbonek, who was raised in Astolat, will tell it to you.  Elaine’s story.  No, not mine.  Elaine’s.  Not Lancelot’s either, although it weaves around him, and to hear him tell it you’d think it was.  Don’t blame him.  Discretion is kindness, and pain is selfish, and I will let Lancelot stay quiet about which twists his lips here.

 

I was raised calling the country Peristan, as my nurse did, but you will call it Faerie.  In Faerie there are neither places nor times, or maybe, no places except times?  Call them demesnes.  The Lake of Apples was a usual neighbor of ours in springtime, and the Harrow Way often crossed the land near the citadel, which I will call Astolat, for the benefit of those who understand nothing without singular names.  Not so my sisters and I.  Our neighbors were nymphs and Arietids and autocthons, for whom names are dear currency, donned and shed like layers of dress, and anyone with but a single name is all but naked.

 

Except for one.  The Mistress of Astolat, the Lady, not that one, called Elaine by the isles of Britain and Helle or Helhenae by the Colchian autocthons, either was, or perhaps, I think, ate, a captive maiden of our shared name a millenium ago.  Perhaps more.  I was not there, and cannot count, any more than should you the other parts of the story for which I was absent. But since then, where she can, the Lady has girded herself in captive maidens with our name, using us as hauberk, as covert, as sunlight in the eye of her enemies.  Astolat is full of mirrors, and of webs, and such things. And us.  The Elaines.

 

***

 

When I was young there were four of us - Fens, Listenoise, Carbonek - that is, me - and Elle, who, like all girls born within the city, shared our name.  We could hardly call her Astolat when there were a hundred others, but she was our particular playmate.  Two more joined us when we were still girls and not yet maidens - Cornwall, who was just a few years older and sullen; and Benoic, a woman in her full prime, pining out the window of the spinning-room for a glimpse of her kin, rescued by the Lady of Apples even as she had been taken by our own Lady.

 

Sometimes, we joined Benoic in looking over the waters, Elle and I especially, but more often we went to tease Elle’s brother Torre and Listenoise’s half-brother, Persides, who were pages to the elf-knights of our Lady.  Other times some or all of us ran madcap through the streets, chasing or being chased by the tiny pale shape of Listenoise’s pet glatisant, bugling and pumping its long neck in excitement as its hooves belled on the flagstones and its sinuous body seemed to travel three directions at once while it cornered.  Brusen, our nurse, would gather us up and scold us, then tell us tales, fanciful and drifting as dreams, until our minds rang with them.  

 

Alike as we were in name, it was impossible to mistake us for one another.  Cornwall was wisp-slender even as she budded, ruddy and rose-blonde of hair, with a face that looked made for friendliness, charming even in its constant scowls.  She was whip-sharp of wit, and passed our learning quickly, even though she had joined us late.

 

Listenoise was quiet, melancholy, still except when her glatisant or her brother cheered her into motion; her olive-tinted skin and black curls always perfectly set off by whatever dress she wore, the most meticulous of appearances.

 

Elle was, of course, utterly unlike the rest of us.  But she was unlike the elf-maids as well, who scorned our company.  Curious, insatiable, ambitious - hungry, perhaps? - she was my best friend, and my best rival as well, and we delighted in quiet contention, as much as either of us ever delighted.  All Elaines might begin merry but then grew into quiet, serious girls - except Fens.  But Elle was, of course, the most beautiful of us, and strangest, wide yellow cat-eyes and hair of variegated browns, vermillions, and golds, the shades of autumn.

 

Benoic was unlike the rest of us, a mother, six-and-twenty when she joined us, broad-hipped, with brown hair and a gentle smile, a fair, soft manner, and a deep grief that frightened us until we better understood it - although Fens and I never did, and always stayed a little aloof.  But she was kind, and ached with the need to care for someone, and I think we became her daughters a little.  She despised Brusen, who we all loved and dismissed as tiresome in equal measure, and that, too, took us a long time to understand - all of us except Cornwall, who of course knew at once, though she did not feel the same.

 

Fens was the best of us.  Swiftest at games, cleverest of tongue, most methodical of lessons and most exact of courtesy, and so open-hearted that we could never resent her for it.  If she had a fault, it was a love of pretty things, especially gold, and she would sacrifice much for bangles and baubles - but she gave them out as gifts, as well, and was happy so long as we displayed them.  Her hair was dark-auburn, her skin freckled and tan, with a joyous smile and muscles which showed, curving the smoothness of her limbs in a way which, if not girlish, still drew the eye.

 

Then, there was myself.  Youngest, slenderest, with dark, straight hair, wide, dark eyes, mousy, unremarkable, overlookable, the most elfin of us who were not.  I held myself in reserve, always a pace behind the others, and watched, and thought, not as quick but twice as sure.  Measure twice, cut once.  Surety comforted me, and I have always done my best to manufacture it.

 

But that is not a story.  It is a series of portraits.  Pictures, I assure you, lovingly embroidered of spiderweb and mirrorlight, but not what I promised.  And promises, too, are a currency, and it does not do for a fey maiden to renege on her debts.  So.  My story begins, or will begin, when we first met Benoic’s son, Lancelot.  The ending, I suspect, you have heard already.

 

Will you listen?

 


End file.
